


Twelve Birds of Christmas

by adi_rotynd



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bird Prince Sam Wilson, Birds, Clint Barton You Know the Farmer, Crack Treated Seriously, Everyone Loves Sam Wilson, Fluff, Gen, Holidays, M/M, Monarchy Is a Trash Institution but Sam Wilson Will Do What Must Be Done, Well Semi-Seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 06:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5487719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adi_rotynd/pseuds/adi_rotynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odin believes Sam Wilson has stolen his ravens. Sam and Steve each have a solution to this problem. Neither of these solutions is well thought out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Wild/barnyard birds in a temporary pet-like situation. Aaaaaand I think that's it. _Weird._
> 
> 1) This fic is kind of the opposite of [matchsticks's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/matchsticks) [Ornithomancer](http://archiveofourown.org/series/322190) series, and wouldn't exist without it. It also owes a huge debt to [Sam Wilson: Actual King of the Birds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636039). The first scene is 100% for [Iris](http://sobdasha.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> 2) _Thor: The Dark World_ -compliant as far as the movie goes, but I guess posits that they figured the Loki situation out and got actual Odin back on the throne. Whatever, this is the real Odin, is the point. 
> 
>  
> 
> [(on tumblr)](http://adirotynd.tumblr.com/post/135669992115/twelve-birds-of-christmas-1)
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy, and comment should it strike your fancy~!

“We’re gonna get yelled at,” Bucky said. He said it in the superior tone of someone who, by ‘we’re gonna get yelled at,’ meant ‘you’re gonna get yelled at.’ 

“That’s awful,” Sam said. He refused to be talked down to by a man giving a grown woman a shoulder ride. “You know I literally dodged bullets in midair yesterday? But some college-age zoo intern yelling at me, man, I might cry.” 

“No one’s going to yell at Sam.” Steve drew himself up, shoulders squared, and glared down at anyone unfortunate enough to be wearing a sweatshirt or windbreaker with the National Zoo insignia within a fifty-yard radius. “Anyway, it’s not his fault, he’s not doing it on purpose. Right?” 

“Aren’t you?” Natasha asked around the straw of her milkshake. She sounded utterly unruffled, which was rich given she'd vaulted onto Bucky’s shoulders the second a bird got close enough to touch her. “If I were you, I’d be doing it on purpose.” 

“Natasha.” Sam raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t decide, ‘I’m going to magically summon the peacocks from the flight run, because that’s a thing I can do and it’d be fun for them,’ no.”

“Did you do it because it’d be fun for me?” Bucky looked at the peacock, short-tailed for winter but brilliant blue from the shoulders up, pecking his bootlaces. He wiggled a wistful finger several feet above its bent head. 

Natasha knocked her heel into his ribs, splattering slush on his coat. “If you lean down to pet that bird and make me spill my milkshake, it’s all going straight into your arm.” 

“I didn’t do anything!” Sam said, and spread his hands. He meant the gesture to indicate his innocence of any involvement in the peacock escape, and he felt the peahen that flapped into his open arms undercut his point. He caught her anyway. “Oof,” he protested, at least for form’s sake. 

“We’re definitely gonna get yelled at,” Bucky said. “Now you’re stealing zoo property.” 

The bird pecked one of Sam’s buttons. It was like getting flicked in the chest by a super soldier. Her feathers shed chilly raindrops on his fingers. Sam ignored how soft she felt, even through the sleeves of his jacket, and he ignored the comforting press of the cold pebbled surface of her long legs against his hands. “I’m not stealing anything!” The brown crest on her head jerked as she inspected his face and turned back to his jacket. 

“Why not? Can I?” Bucky held a hand out. 

“This milkshake,” Natasha said, “is strawberry. It’s very good. Real strawberries, tiny seeds and all.” 

The bird at Bucky’s feet found a piece of pretzel and performed a snakelike wiggle of its neck as it swallowed. He dropped his hand. “Steve, Sam wants a peacock.” 

Natasha kicked him again. “He does not!” 

“No, I don’t. They’re not pets. She’s going to shit on me any second now, I want you all to know. And they’re loud as hell.” The peahen, as if in confirmation, yelped. The last one, over by some abandoned French fries, yelped back. 

“They sound like seals,” Bucky said. “I want one.” 

“Sir,” said a college-age zoo intern, rushing up to Sam. She looked frazzled. “I really have to ask you to put her down. They’re not tame, they’re not even _nice_ , and we need to get them back in their habitat.” 

Steve stepped between them, all chest and jaw, and Sam had his hands too full to intervene. “Miss, he’s not hurting it, and it’s not going to hurt him. Why don’t you concentrate on the one in danger of getting stepped on.” He pointed at the one splitting its time between stealing French fries in flurries of movement and keeping an eye on a nearby raven of unusual size. It wasn’t, that Sam could see, in danger of being stepped on. In danger of becoming a very minor celebrity on YouTube, maybe; there weren’t many people around, but the ones who were had their phones out. 

“This is what we get when you wind him up like that,” Sam told Bucky. “He’s going to make this child cry.” He stepped around Steve. The hen made a rattling sound and ripped his button off, and he freed a hand just in time to confiscate the choking hazard. “How about if I put this one back?” 

Steve, grumbling, appeared to join the last peacock in staring down the raven. It had been joined by an equally large friend. 

The intern smiled the dazed smile of someone who didn’t have time for another self-proclaimed Doctor Doolittle today. “That’s very nice, but if you just set her down, we’ll take care of—” 

“You can trust him,” Bucky said. “He’s an Avenger.” He waved mournfully at the peacock that had abandoned his boot. 

Head bobbing, it made its way over to Sam and started jabbing at his elbow. The white on its back was gray with rain and its feet were muddy. It was fine that he couldn’t pick it up. He didn’t even want to. “Sorry, I don’t have any food,” he told it. 

Bucky patted his pockets but came up empty of treats. “If Sam gets them all put away do we get to keep one?” 

“No,” the intern said. She stared at Bucky’s hand, and at Natasha’s hair, and at Steve’s… at Steve. She turned to Sam. “I was supposed to clock out ten minutes ago,” she said. “If you’re seriously the Falcon, then yes, _please_ , go ahead.” 

“Sure,” Sam said. “No problem.” 

It turned out to be a little bit of a problem. 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Sam was having a weird day. He was beset by super-powered blonds worried about birds. 

Thor touched down outside his house at 0800, thudding into the thin crust of snow in the back yard and scaring the cardinals away from the feeder. Sam welcomed him in and gave him a seat at the table, but kept getting ready to go to the VA. He assumed Thor was there to confer with Steve or wrestle with Steve, or wrestle with Bucky, or wrestle with both of them, all of which were wonderful sights but not worth missing the one day a week of normal work he carved out from the superhero gig. 

Except: “Sam,” Thor said. Sam was screwing the lid onto his thermos of coffee, practically out the door. “My friend. I wonder if I might speak to you a moment on a matter of—some delicacy.” 

Steve went from what Sam identified only belatedly as a background hum of tension into high gear, hands on the table and jaw jutting. Bucky glanced across the table at him, then leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach like he was relaxing, which meant he was doing the opposite. “I’ve got it,” said Steve. “Tony told me. I said I’d talk to Sam.” 

“Hey,” said Sam. “I’m right here. Too late. What’s the problem, Thor? In,” he checked his phone, “under five minutes.” 

Thor, who actually wore the gifts Tony gave him, poked a knob on his ridiculously expensive watch. “You have my father’s ravens, Hugin and Munin. He would like you to send them back immediately, as he depends on them for information.” He grinned and poked the knob again. “Nine seconds.” 

“Huh,” said Sam, and ducked to look out the nearest window. The Tower of London-grade ravens he’d first noticed at the zoo were still there, perched in a leafless tree and watching the fence for victims. Since they’d started hanging around, the squirrels had stopped stealing the sunflower seeds and suet from his feeder. The ravens seemed pretty happy. Also, Sam had just been given lip in his own kitchen. “Well, I don’t _have_ them, so I’m not _sending_ them anywhere, either. Tell your dad he might need to look into employing a new set. Maybe give them better benefits.” 

Thor shuffled. His chair creaked. “The Allfather has suffered several grievous blows of late,” he said. “This would come at a poor time. I would be grateful if you could ease his mind in this small thing by returning his—by returning the ravens to him.” 

Bucky put his feet on the table and balanced his chair on its back legs. “If it’s a small thing,” he said, “your dad can let it go.” 

Steve nodded. “I might not have said it exactly like that.”

“You probably would’ve.”

Steve ignored Bucky. “But Sam’s not doing anything. You’re not doing anything, right?”

“Why am I being asked that so much all of a sudden? No, I didn’t use bird witchcraft to make Odin’s personal spy ravens hang out at my house. I trust Fury to do enough spying for one household.” 

“See? And it really can’t be that big a deal. He’s got Heimdall, and… I mean, he’s a king—” 

“It sounds a lot like he’s an emperor, technically,” Sam muttered. 

“—I assume he has other spies.” 

“The ravens,” Thor said, “have sentimental value.” He was starting to get the panicked look Sam associated with Thor having found himself already halfway through a sentence about his brother. 

“Thor,” Bucky said. “You’re not seriously telling us to be worried about your dad... seeking reprisal. Over some birds.” Steve planted his elbows slowly on the table. His biceps bulged. Bucky let his head drop against the back of the chair. 

“My father,” said Thor, who for someone with such a booming voice could speak very quietly, and who for someone so forthright could look remarkably shifty, “has made decisions of late which I find increasingly hard to understand. And while you may not hold them here intentionally, Sam, you must admit birds—”

“Flock to you,” Bucky said, unable to contain himself. 

“As at the zoo,” Thor continued. “Those were not, as I understand it, pet birds. Yet in the images Tony’s collected—”

“Okay,” said Sam. “Look, I don’t have magical bird powers. If your dad has a problem with his ravens, he can talk to them. If he has a problem with me, he can talk to me. I’m going to work.” 

So that was his morning, and by the time he got back from two groups and a shitload of paperwork, Steve had found a way for his afternoon to top it. 

Sam opened the front door and tried to kick his boots off without scattering slush all over the front hall. Steve jumped off the couch and stood in front of it. “I got you something,” he said, in a tone better suited to, ‘I broke something of yours.’

“Yeah?” Sam put his bag down, in case he needed his hands free, but slowly, in case sudden movement was a bad idea. 

“A Christmas present,” Steve said. 

“He did,” said Natasha. “He really did.” Sam hadn’t noticed her, because she was on top of his media cabinet. That wasn’t a place he checked for guests. Natasha, when she relaxed, had some strange social habits, but climbing the furniture wasn’t usually one of them. 

Sam unzipped his coat and wondered whether he’d be better off getting rid of it for ease of movement or keeping it for an extra layer of protection. “It’s November. Is my present dangerous?” Sam asked. 

“No,” Steve said. 

“Define ‘dangerous,’” Natasha said. 

“It’s not! It’s adorable.” 

“Don’t say that to me, Steve. You’ve got an adorable superspy on top of my TV. She’s not non-dangerous.”

“It’s only a pet,” said Steve. He beckoned Sam into the living room and around the couch, his face a shining beacon of hope. “A _rescue_ pet.”

Sam left his coat on. “Rescued from what?” he said, but walked over, mentally listing the answers he didn’t want: rescued from an evil scientist, from an alternate dimension, from another planet. 

“From the Humane Society, actually. He was the only bird they had.” 

Sam rounded the couch and stopped. He took a second before he said, “Is that a partridge? Is that a dog crate with a partridge in it?” 

“Its name is—”

“Nope! Don’t tell me. We’re not naming it. We’re not keeping it. Steve, we can’t—one partridge? They can’t live alone. We’d have to get at least two more. And we can’t house three partridges. Hell, we can’t house _one_ , in D.C. in the winter. They’re not indoor pets.” 

“No, I know, but hear me out, these are special circumstances.” 

“Special circumstances,” Natasha repeated, and laughed. The partridge made a sudden move toward the door of the crate and she tucked her feet onto the shelf above Sam’s DVD player. 

Steve glared at her. “Let me tell him. Sam, Le—the bird—he _was_ an indoor pet, and he’s confused about what to do with other partridges.” 

Sam, who knew better than to do this, who knew himself and birds and Steve’s damn puppy dog eyes, crouched so he could see in the door of the crate better. The partridge backed up a step, head snaking down. A thick black band of feathers covered its brown eyes and swept down around its neck, ringing a white patch. “Chukar, huh,” he said. “Okay, what’s its problem with other partridges?” 

“He responds to them aggressively,” said Steve. “Really aggressively. He, um. Kills them. I mean, I know birds fight, but the farm that had him before the Society had to get rid of him because of the death toll.” 

“Tell him the rest,” Natasha said darkly. 

“The rest isn’t even confirmed. I just thought, since the Humane Society couldn’t keep him any longer, we could take Lecter and give him somewhere to relax until he’s up to interacting normally.” 

“Lecter,” Sam repeated. The Chukar bobbed its neck back out, twisting to examine him with a bright eye. Its spurs were short but looked wickedly sharp. “Steve. Is this thing eating the birds it kills?” 

“Yes,” said Natasha. “It’s evil. I’ve seen evil, and I don’t use the word lightly. That bird is evil.” 

“Oh, for—one of the volunteers at the Humane Society claimed someone on the farm saw Lecter pecking one of the corpses. I’m sure he was looking for bugs. Anyway, Natasha says that ‘I’ve seen evil’ line about most birds.” 

“I do not!”

“Last week a cardinal rated ‘pure malevolence from the coldest pits of hell’ for shitting on your car.” 

Lecter finished examining Sam and threw himself bodily against the door of the cage. He was easily a foot long, and solidly built. The door bowed slightly before he rebounded. He charged again and tried pecking the bars. Mostly he scraped his little gray head and chubby white cheeks. “Ah, shit,” said Sam, and unlatched the door. Lecter barreled out, dashed up Sam’s thigh, and thudded into his chest. He sat there, quivering. Sam could feel his heartbeat shaking his whole body. “Goddamnit,” said Sam. 

“Yeah,” said Steve. “It’s, uh—his first owner was this retired guy who raised him alone, so he thought that guy was his whole covey. Then the man died, so Lecter got put on a farm, and it didn’t… take.” 

“God,” said Sam, with great feeling, “damn it.” Lecter turned on his thigh to back up under the flap of his coat and peer out at Steve. 

“We can help him,” Steve said, brimming with conviction. “It was too fast a change, is all. He’s still young. We’ll get him used to other birds slower. I’m not saying it’ll be easy—” 

“Easy? Steve—” 

The front door banged open and Bucky came in, stomping snow off his boots and ruffling it out of his hair. “Natasha,” he said, “what the hell are you doing?” 

“Steve messed up,” Natasha said with relish, and pointed down at Sam. 

“I didn’t mess up,” Steve said. “It’s gonna work.” 

Bucky kicked his boots off and leaned over the back of the couch. His eyes went round. “That,” he said, “is a fat bird.” 

“Oops,” said Natasha. 

“Yeah,” Steve said, with insufferable smugness. “He’s pretty fat.”

“He’s spherical,” Bucky said. “He’s a fucking beach ball.” He looked at Sam and blinked rapidly. 

“Don’t,” said Sam. “Do not bother. Buck, he’d need someone with him all the time. He needs sand to dig in, bugs, and it’s winter in Washington D.C. We’d have to get more birds and… I don’t know, give them supervised visitation. We’re too busy.” At some point during his speech he’d reached over and put his left hand under Lecter to help him balance. His fingers were encased in feathers and the bird’s heart rate was dropping to something more reasonable. 

Bucky had worked up some tears. “I’ll take a leave from the Avengers,” he said. “I’ll build him a huge sand bath in the basement.” Now he’d achieved a choke in his voice, and went for broke. “Hydra never let me have pets.” 

“We could try for a few weeks,” Steve said. “Give him a chance, right?” 

“Shit,” Sam said, lingering on the vowel in an attempt to buy himself some time. Bucky, eyes red-rimmed, sniffed dramatically. Steve looked up from under his eyelashes. Natasha crossed her legs under herself, bringing them further out of reach, but looked interested. Sam gave up. “This is not my Christmas present, you hear me, Rogers? This temporary arrangement is your Christmas present.” 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

After that for a morning and afternoon, Sam got this for an evening: A should-have-been-wild-or-barnyard fowl running in thumping circles around the bedroom. The bed, the dressers, and the chair by the window were fair game in his circuit. The Humane Society had been giving Lecter chicken feed, so his droppings were a runny mess. Bucky was still enchanted enough to clean up after him without being asked, but Sam’s expectation of that continuing for long was low. 

Sam took his spot in the middle of the bed. Bucky came out of the bathroom and crawled over Sam to get to his side. Steve, shirtless and smelling of Sam’s toothpaste, might have circled the bed for the express purpose of crawling over both of them to get to his side. The man did know how to pitch an apology. 

They’d shut Lecter in the room with them so they’d know what he was up to and that he was okay. The flaw in this plan became apparent when Steve hit the lamp and the bird ran up Sam’s legs onto his stomach and started turning in circles like a dog. 

“Well,” said Sam. “Didn’t think that one all the way through.” 

“He likes us,” Bucky said. He curled a flesh knuckle into the bird’s side. Lecter ignored him and kept turning in circles, shaking his wings and clawing at the blanket. 

“Yeah, he likes us, we’re his covey. His covey should be other partridges.”

“We’ll get him other partridges,” Steve promised. Lecter dropped onto his front, still trying to squirm, beat, or kick his way through the blanket, one side at a time. Sam rubbed his chest, keel firm through feathers. Lecter let out a shrill cheep. “And then he’ll have time with his new bird friends. A superhero intervention squad for when he gets testy.”

“It’s still a really drastic plan,” Sam said. “For a Christmas present. In November. You want to tell me what this is about?” 

“I just,” Steve said. “I thought. I know you’re not _trying_ to keep the ravens. But they do like you. Birds like you. They don’t—Hugin and Munin?—they don’t just hang around the house in the morning. They follow you. Tony has pictures, they’re everywhere you are, for months now. And they seemed kind of pissed about the peacocks, so I thought maybe if you had another bird and they got jealous, they’d leave. Go back to Odin, or just—away, so he can’t blame you.” 

“Really?” said Bucky. “I’ll just kill him if he tries shit. You can have the ravens too, Sam.” 

Steve snorted. “Yeah, thanks, Buck, you kill the king of the only other planet definitely in Earth’s corner. Who is also our friend’s dad. Can we just try my plan first?” 

Bucky made a doubtful noise. Lecter burrowed his head into Sam’s ribs, pushing to the right for a few beats and then to the left. 

“Sam?” Steve said. 

“Asgard sounds like mostly assholes, and it isn’t in our corner,” Sam said. “Thor is. But… yeah, we’re already dealing with a cranky god. Let’s try your weird plan. As long as you know once Bucky gets sick of cleaning up Lecter’s shit, it’s your job.” 

“Deal,” Steve said, and kissed him. 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Sam’s Wednesday was spectacularly weird, but he figured Thursday would be better. He woke up sandwiched between two super soldiers, which made it hard to worry about some old dude on another planet. He also woke up with a colossally fucked up partridge snoring on his chest, which made it hard to think about anything else. 

He spent the morning puttering around to see what Lecter did in response. What Lecter did was follow him. Sam made coffee with Lecter on the counter, organized a bookshelf while Lecter thumped around the living room, and tried to reread some Coates while Lecter stood on the coffee table and pecked the spine of the book. Sam set it aside and let Lecter jump on his lap, where he hunkered down and started up again with the trilling cheep. 

Steve pressed a kiss to Sam’s temple. “You need anything? Now that you’re stuck.” 

“Yeah, how ’bought you grab me my laptop and an eight-course breakfast.” 

“I can do three courses before we run out of groceries.” Steve dropped a hand onto Sam’s leg and slid it along Lecter’s side, smoothing the tan strokes edged with black that barred his wings. “Then I’m gonna find us more birds. Bucky wants me to get baby gates for the stairs, too.” 

“He knows Lecter can fly, right? This is a plot so you can turn around when it’s all over and tell me hey, we’ve got the stuff we need for a dog.” 

“Don’t even say that, Bucky’ll start in about wanting a borzoi again.” 

Lecter peeped and lunged forward under Sam’s hand. Sam tapped along his back. “Yeah, that would be nuts.” 

Steve huffed into his ear. “I’ll make you breakfast in bed every day we have the bird….” 

“Start by making me breakfast now.” 

Steve kissed his cheek with an obnoxious smacking sound and retreated to the kitchen. 

Lecter got up shortly, but Sam got his laptop and breakfast delivered anyway. He searched YouTube for videos of Chukar partridges and confirmed that Lecter shouldn’t still be peeping. The bird, ignoring the host of clucks and warbles and squawks from the computer, ran back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, careening into Steve and skittering across the back of the couch to brush against Sam’s neck. 

Bucky emerged from his construction project in the basement to get breakfast on his way out the door with Steve. “Gonna break the news to Fury,” he said. He scratched Lecter’s neck goodbye, clicking his tongue at him, and then caught Sam’s expression. “I said I’d take time off. You didn’t believe me?”

“Sorta thought that was the heat of them moment.”

“This is the heat of the moment,” Bucky said, and kept one hand above Sam’s waist during their goodbye kiss, which for Bucky was pretty romantic. 

And off they both went. Sam was alone when Odin got there. 

He was outside when it happened. He thought for the already-dubious plan to work, it might help for the ravens to see Lecter, whatever Steve’s opinion of the psychic ability of birds. He put his coat and boots on, and even that was enough for Lecter to start running in a circle around his ankles, peeping loudly. “Well, we can’t call you dumb,” Sam said. “You know what that means, huh? Don’t worry, you get to come too.” He scooped Lecter up and into the folds of his coat, which he closed most of the way around the bird. He hooked his fingers around the scaly little legs to prevent a panicked flight into the mouths of any beasts and walked into the back yard. 

Sam might have thought Steve was overreacting to Thor’s news, and he might have thought Thor’s news was based mostly on his dad’s paranoia. He stepped outside holding Lecter, though, and two ravens larger than some dogs hit the roof of his car. 

“Jesus,” Sam said between his teeth. 

He hadn’t heard them coming, but their arrival was too big an event to miss. They had managed a graceful crash-landing. The roof of the car screeched and thumped under their weight, and snow sprayed down the windshield. They folded their unruffled wings, black legs steady, talons clicking. One of them opened a hooked beak and hissed. The other’s shaggy throat swelled and bristled. One of them let out a deep, vibrating note. 

“Hi,” Sam said, because it seemed like he should say something. He curled an arm in front of Lecter, who was holding very still. Sam sympathized. The raven on the left twisted its head back and forth on the axis of its beak. Its eye was rimmed ice blue. It arched forward. Sam had never been so acutely aware that a bird could, if it wanted to, swallow his eyeball. The other one dipped down, croaking. Its sooty tongue shook and it shrugged its wings with each call. Lecter stuck his fool head out of Sam’s coat and peeped. 

“Sorry about that,” Sam said. “He’s probably being rude. But you’re not allowed to eat him.” 

The croaking one stood up straight and shuffled back and forth. It inspected him from the left and then the right. Its eyes had amber at the edges, which struck Sam as marginally less weird. It looked from his arm to his face and bobbed in place. Then all three birds froze. Their heads twisted skyward. Hugin and Munin took off simultaneously, silent. 

Thor had tabs with several municipalities specifically for damage caused by his arrival via the Bifrost. Sam was pretty sure Tony paid the bill, if only because he had bank accounts instead of fistfuls of gold. The sky ripped open and unleashed itself on Sam’s back yard, and he wondered whether the D.C. tab covered damage to private property. In the middle of the blinding light thundering down, he could make out the silhouette of a huge dude holding a big goddamn spear. 

Sam squinted at the smoking splinters of his birdfeeder and the runic knot burning itself into the slush of his lawn. “Hey,” he called over the scream of the collapsed depths of space. He didn’t manage even the level of friendliness he’d found within himself for the ancient alien life forms in the shape of ravens. “You want to turn that thing off?”

Probably-Odin probably did something with his spear. It was hard to tell. The light coalesced into a single point and disappeared. 

“Thanks,” Sam said, in a tone he hoped communicated the profundity of his irritation. He was going to spend all week apologizing to his neighbors. 

It was Odin, all right. If Sam had ever wondered how Thor would look if he were really old and really worried, here was the answer. That didn’t mean Odin was unimpressive. He had all Thor’s theatrical size and wardrobe and all Fury’s gravitas. It worked for him. It wasn’t going to do anything for Sam when Mrs. Perle across the street spent the next month making passive-aggressive comments about the sanctity of her morning naps, though. 

“Samuel Wilson,” Odin boomed. 

“You found him.” Sam ran his free hand down Lecter’s neck and under his raised left wing. Under the fluff and fat, his ribs pumped against Sam’s palm. 

“I am Odin, Allfather, King of Asgard, and I will thank you to return my property,” Odin said. 

Sam chose maybe not the best moment to get sick of telling people he wasn’t doing anything. “No,” he said. And then, because Odin was his friend’s dad and capable of declaring war on the entire planet, he added, “How about you come in and have some lunch. Since you came all this way.” 

Odin’s good eye narrowed. Sam had the same in-the-crosshairs prickle at the base of his skull he got when Fury stared him down. Odin, though, didn’t have the power to ask Sam ominously how a six-week mission to Alaska in December sounded. Also, the eye-narrowing might have been confused rather than threatening. He looked a lot like Thor making sense of some bizarre human take on a proper Asgardian custom when he said, “Then we will negotiate over a meal.” 

“Something like that,” Sam said. “Just come inside, it’s cold and you’re scaring my bird.” 

Which was how he ended up warming leftover ribeye to serve the King of Asgard at his kitchen table. Lecter clicked around Sam’s feet, slipping on the linoleum and crashing into Sam’s ankles. Odin had left his huge-ass spear, which doubtless doubled as some kind of high-tech gun, leaning next to the door. Lecter, during one of his spinouts, slid too close the thing. “Sit down before you hurt yourself,” Sam told him. He was using the oven, so he didn’t mean ‘not only should you physically sit down, you should do it on my foot.’ This was what Lecter did. “Right,” Sam said. “You know what, while we’re at this, I’m gonna open the window in case our friends have anything to add to the discussion. Especially since it’s them you should be talking to, full stop.” 

“They will do as instructed,” Odin said, “so soon as you release them from your thrall.” 

“I’m not holding anyone in thrall. For the love of Pete.” Leaning over the sink to get the window was tricky with Lecter on his foot, but he managed it. Snow blew into the sink.

Odin glared at him from behind bristling beard and eyebrows. Sam wondered whether he could get him to pose for a picture in a Santa hat. If Thor didn’t make such an effective betrayed face, maybe. “All right,” Sam said. He picked Lecter up to free himself to move and laid out two plates of the steak he’d grilled night before last. “Dig in.” It was eleven in the morning, and normally he’d have served a guest something light, but judging by Thor, this was light in terms of the Asgardian appetite. 

Odin took three appreciative bites before he reached for his water with a glint of fear in his eye, which was two better than most white guys and one better than Thor. 

“The bread helps,” Sam said, pushing the loaf across the table. 

Odin was less intimidating with his eye watering. He continued just as snappishly, “Every moment I indulge this parlay rather than simply taking back what is mine is another moment I humor my son.” As much as he looked like Thor, the way Odin talked—even his voice—reminded Sam a lot more of the footage he’d seen of Loki. “Thor’s vow to protect the Earth and its inhabitants carries no political weight, now that he’s forfeited his claim to the throne. I demand that you release whatever hold it is you have on my ravens before my patience thins further.” Odin was like Thor in that he kept right on eating through this speech. Thor’s mid-meal speeches were more fun. 

Sam looked over at the kitchen window. Hugin and Munin were perched there. One of them, the one with brown eyes, flapped to the floor in a gust of rot and cold. The other one shifted from foot to foot on the windowsill. They were both looking at Sam. He beckoned, thoughtless, and the one with blue eyes sailed in. Which was a coincidence, like Lecter sitting down when Sam told him to had been, but even knowing that, Sam could see that it looked—

Sam would have liked to think that he considered the language Odin was speaking and decided to make a risky but legitimate attempt to speak it right back. He was concerned that what had happened in reality was that he didn’t think at all. “No,” he said. “It’s not some spell I can lift. They’re not yours and they never were. They’re mine. All birds are.” Evidence that he hadn’t thought this through included his instant panic that Odin might claim Hugin and Munin, as ancient alien life forms, weren’t birds. If he could get that far through the gales of laughter. 

Instead, Odin stopped eating. 

Sam, if he was going to get killed by an old guy with too much power for his own good and kick off an interplanetary war with his death, was going out big. “You know,” he said, “you should be grateful I’m not demanding back taxes. You’ve been taking advantage of my subjects’ skillset for how many thousands of years, now?” _The Second Alien War Begins_ , this chapter in the history textbook would be entitled. 

Odin took a sip of water and another slice of bread. Sam lowered Lecter to the floor beneath his chair so the bird wouldn’t get fried when Sam did. 

“Asgard,” Odin said, “pays its debts.” 

“So I hear,” said Sam, who hadn’t. 

Odin tore off a hunk of bread and ate it contemplatively. “If I have been remiss, I will set it right,” he said. 

“Yeah?” said Sam. _Holy shit, he bought it._ “Well, look, like you said, we’re all friends of Thor here, so how about I let that slide and you don’t break your boy’s heart.” 

“I will pay my debts,” Odin repeated sharply. “When I have done so, we will revisit my arrangement with Hugin and Munin. Tell me, then, what it is I owe you.” 

Sam would have liked to text Thor to find out what he could ask for that Odin couldn’t get, delaying the renegotiation indefinitely. Pulling out his phone would look suspicious, though. “Well,” he said, “I’ve got birds to take care of. So the going currency is black oil sunflower seeds. I don’t know if you’ve got those on Asgard, though.” 

“We do not,” said Odin. 

“That’s a real shame.”

“I will acquire them.” Odin stood. He’d finished the meat and used bread to mop the plate clean. His eye was still watering. “I will return within the month with your first payment. By then I trust you will have reached a decision as to the amount.” 

“Uh,” said Sam. “Good. Sure I will.” 

He was saved having to say anything more when a cackle drew their attention to the three birds—all three of them together. Lecter, crouched into a waddle, was approaching Hugin and Munin. The one with blue eyes had its mouth open; its head jerked in circles. Lecter straightened abruptly and bicycled with a spurred leg. The brown-eyed one whipped a wing out and buffeted Lecter over the head. It knocked him flat. 

“ _Hey_ ,” Sam said, trying to figure how he was going to grab Lecter without hurting any of them. “That’s enough.” 

Both ravens took a step back. So did Lecter. Sam walked over and picked him up before he could think too hard about that. “See you later,” he said to Odin. “Good luck with the sunflowers.” 

Odin nodded and, finally, looked directly at the goddamn ravens. “Farewell.”

Sam listened to the Bifrost’s electric charge from safe on the other side of the kitchen door, sitting on the floor with his back against the cupboards and Lecter in his lap. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Holy shit.” 

The blue-eyed raven sidled close enough to tug at the lace of his sneaker. Lecter peeped at it. The brown-eyed raven cocked its head at Sam. 

“Okay,” he said, “so I pulled some shit. Don’t think I don’t know you two are up to some shit yourselves.” 

The brown-eyed raven walked over to Sam’s side, right up to him. It looked like an oil slick, and smelled like ozone and something so rotten it was sweet. It flapped onto his raised knee. “Sure,” Sam breathed, and didn’t fold his lips in or close his eyes to minimize the surgery he was going to need if that beak got aimed his way. “We’re all friends here, right?” Lecter peeped and wiggled close enough to the raven to push his head into its stomach. “He’s just saying hi.” 

The raven made several gargling little chuckles, bent over, and vomited next to Sam’s leg before sliding down his shin to the other bird. They took off together and circled. They filled the kitchen, wingtip to wingtip too big for the space. One after the other they dove out the small window over the sink, wings tucked in. 

After they’d gone Sam realized the blue-eyed one had stolen his shoelace.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen. Asgard is very advanced. Sunflowers can mature there as fast as I want. Maybe they were transplanted. Science doesn't know. 
> 
> ([on tumblr](http://adirotynd.tumblr.com/post/135738931700/twelve-birds-of-christmas-2))
> 
> Enjoy, and comment should it strike your fancy.~

“I got your text,” Steve said on his way through the door. He beat Bucky home, which was good. Sam didn’t especially want Bucky to see the back yard without Steve around. “It gave me an idea. Better than my last idea, promise.” 

“I’ll make the call on that one, how about,” Sam said from the couch, where Lecter was running back and forth with frequent breaks to sit on Sam’s lap. 

“No, it’s a _really_ good idea,” Steve said. “Wait till you see what I’ve got in the car…. What’s wrong?” 

Sam dropped his head back against the couch and dragged his hands over his face. “You know how your last bad idea was to give me a pet serial killer bird that thinks it’s a human child?” 

“That’s not—! I gave you a really cute bird temporarily so we can rehabilitate it, because we’re superheroes and it’s Christmas.” 

“It’s November,” Sam said through the crack between his palms. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I just outdid you. _My_ last bad idea was to tell Odin I was the king of birds.” 

Steve laughed and kissed Sam’s fingertips and forehead. “I like it. Simple. Effective. We could teach Lecter some tricks and you could give ‘orders’ as proof.” 

“Steve…” Sam substituted closing his eyes for covering his face and reached back to clasp his hands behind Steve’s neck. 

“I know, teaching Lecter tricks wouldn’t help him adjust to being a real bird, I’m kidding.” 

“I’m not.”

Steve, who’d been busy kissing Sam’s eyelids, paused. “But we can’t—Sam.”

“He was here,” Sam said. “I just… said it. I heavily implied it. I made some claims.” 

“He was here?” Steve straightened up. “Odin was here, at this house. On this planet. Are you okay?”

“Dude’s like 90, I’m fine. He, uh, acted like he bought it.” Sam opened his eyes. 

Lecter scampered over his thighs, onto the arm of the couch, and up along the back until he ran into Steve’s elbow. Steve patted his round back. “Okay,” he said. “I… okay. We can work with that. I’ll call Thor. Why…? You know, it doesn’t matter. That’s good.” 

“I told him he owed me taxes,” Sam said. “So he’s coming back to pay them.” 

Steve, despite his tight lips and death grip on his phone, laughed. “ _Sam._ ” 

“He was being an asshole.” 

“I bet, but now even if he bought it we have to keep convincing him! We’re teaching Lecter to bow.” 

“We’re not teaching Lecter shit except to behave himself with other birds. You said you got something?” 

Steve picked Lecter up and let him scratch his way into a nest made of coat sleeves. “Well, before I knew I had to con the emperor of the universe, my biggest concern was your text about starting Lecter out on a bird big enough that he couldn’t hurt it.” 

“Right,” said Sam. “Because those fucking ravens came inside and he was fine with them once they knocked him over.” 

“Jesus _Christ_ , Sam! Why didn’t you call me when all this was happening?” 

“What’d you get?” Sam asked, both to dodge the question and out of a legitimate concern that Steve’s idea had been ostriches. 

“I called Clint,” Steve said. “Because when I’m in over my head, I call people and ask them for help. If I was alone in the house with three semi-hostile aliens, say. I’d call at least one of my superhero boyfriends then.” 

“Really,” Sam said, slowly enough to give Steve plenty of time to remember instances in which he hadn’t asked for help and to wipe the righteousness off his face. 

“Anyway,” Steve said hastily, “I thought Clint might know where to get a large bird. Because of the farm. And he said they have a pond and Laura wants swans for it, but since swans are… you know, dangerous, especially for kids… they’ve been putting it off. But then he heard about a sanctuary where you can adopt swans who got hurt by hunters or industrial accidents or whatever, and if you do that then the sanctuary has more room for the next swan—” 

“How many,” Sam said, “swans. Did you get.” 

“Three,” Steve said. “The ones missing wings. Since that’s mostly what makes them dangerous to kids. We can keep them for a little bit, and then they can go live with Clint. The sanctuary said they can’t be in cages, but it’s okay for them to come inside for the winter. Bucky’ll make them a pool in the basement.” He scratched Lecter’s neck. “They’re in the car,” he added. “And they broke into the bag of cranberries I got them. _But_ the best part is, Clint says he’ll take Lecter, too, once he’s ready. They’ve got chickens, so he should fit—”

Bucky blew through the back door with a pistol in one hand and a container of live grasshoppers in the other. He stormed into the living room, saw Sam and Steve, and relaxed fractionally. “What the fuck happened out back?” 

“More important question,” said Sam. “How do you feel about adding a pool to the basement project?” 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Bucky professed to feel fine about adding a pool, and about herding three elbow-high swans into the house, and about “everything except you not goddamn calling me when a fucking senile power-hungry alien fired a nuclear shitting weapon at the back yard and then waltzed into the house.” 

Neither Steve nor Sam mentioned the likelihood of Bucky hastening the apocalypse by shooting the Allfather in the head. Sam said, “How about you show us what you’ve got in the basement so far?” 

Bucky, grumbling, did. Steve and Lecter stayed upstairs to call Thor and avoid bird fights; Sam and the swans followed Bucky and the bags of food into the basement. The swans hopped sideways down the stairs, fluttering and honking. 

Sam whistled. “Well, would you look at this wonderland.” Bucky had covered the floor with tarp, built up what amounted to a seven-by-twelve foot sandbox, and unrolled a layer of sod and cheatgrass on top of a few feet of that. On another section of the tarp a shallow kiddie pool glistened. Three new full-spectrum lights beamed from the ceiling. 

“We’re gonna need a way bigger pool,” Bucky said. He slid one of the baby gates Steve had bought into place at the foot of the stairs and sat down on the edge of the sandbox. “And some other kinds of grass.” 

“Yeah, sorry, fellas.” Sam sat down next to him, dug into the bag he’d lugged down, and offered a handful of corn kernels to the nearest swan. It bent its neck to nibble at the food with a rounded black bill. “This won’t be for too long.” 

“Wonder how they got hurt,” Bucky said. He dumped corn and barley together into a tray and pushed it over to the swans. One was missing a wing to the elbow joint and one was missing a wing up to the shoulder. The big one eating from Sam’s hand was missing most of both wings. Fleshy pink stubs protruded from the remaining feathers. 

“They’re okay now,” Sam said. “Being grounded, it’s not the end of the world. Steve said they’ve been at the sanctuary since they were young, so they’re used to people helping them. Just… be careful anyway. They’re not a friendly species, by reputation.” 

Bucky scoffed. “It’s eating out of your hand.”

“Ah, shit, I shouldn’t be doing that. I wasn’t thinking.” He tossed the remaining corn over into the pool. The swan made a halfhearted snap at his hand, then waddled off in pursuit, gabbling. 

“You shouldn’t be, maybe, but you can.” Bucky leaned back in the sand, keeping the metal hand clear. “Birds really like you.” 

“These ones are used to people.” 

“That’s all it is, huh?” Bucky reached into the pan and grabbed a handful, then extended it to the nearest swan. The swan eyed his hand and backed up one shuffling step, neck curving into an S. Its wing lifted. Bucky dropped the grains and sat back. “See?”

The swan darted forward and its head snaked out. It clamped its beak down on Bucky’s knee. 

“Shit,” Bucky said as the swan retreated, wing flapping. “Ouch.” 

“Thank you,” Sam said, trying not to laugh. “That was a great object lesson.”

“It was.” Bucky made to straighten his leg but held still when the swan still at the pan stopped eating to look at him. “It did prove my point. Thanks a whole bunch,” he told the biter. It honked. The eater honked back and the biter rejoined it at the pan. “I like them,” Bucky announced. He tugged Sam closer to him. 

“That sounds about right. One of them bites you so they’re your favorite.” 

“Hey, you know me. If one kicked me in the head I’d marry it. Anyway they’d better be my favorites. It’s just going to be me and the mean swans, living in the basement by ourselves, if you go around trying to deal with Odin alone. By lying to him.” 

“It was a calculated risk,” Sam said. “What do you know about white-crowned sparrows?”

“That they exist, as of right now.” Bucky wrapped his left arm around Sam’s waist. Sam condescended to lean against him even though he looked like he suspected white-crowned sparrows didn’t in fact exist. 

“Well, the brighter their crowns are, the higher up in the hierarchy they get to be.”

“Are you asking me to forge you a shiny crown? Just because I can fix a car, your highness….”

“You—shut up. Listen, this dude picked a sparrow and painted its crown brighter, and all the other birds started treating it like the boss. The bird sure as hell didn’t do anything. It didn’t even know its head looked different. But the subordinate birds were the ones making the call.”

Bucky grimaced and knocked his head against Sam’s. “Your plan was to slap on a metaphorical shiny crown and hope Odin put himself in charge of enforcing his own position as subordinate.” 

“I’m not gonna listen to lectures about planning from either of you, you both think ‘run straight at the people shooting, maybe get captured and fight our way back out’ is stellar tactical decision-making.” Sam watched all three swans clamber, flapping, into the kiddie pool. It was too shallow. They stood in ankle-deep water and honked. One bent to nibble at another’s back solicitously, which at least shut it up. And they weren’t even being loud yet, as swans went. At least Mrs. Perle couldn’t get on him about this; her cockatiels were just as loud, often at 5 a.m. 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

They celebrated the beginning of December by cleaning the basement top to bottom, replacing the sand and water, and introducing Lecter to the swans. This went as well as could be expected with Mean and Meanest, and spectacularly with Meaner. (Bucky named the swans. Bucky spent six hours a day with the swans, so Sam figured he’d earned it.) 

Natasha showed up a week later. She insisted both on getting to see them interact and on doing so from behind the baby gate. 

“Those are… big,” she said. Mean and Meanest traded grooming services back and forth while Meaner stood over them, watchful. “Can they get over the gate?”

“They can’t fly,” said Steve, who was holding Lecter despite the bird’s decreasing patience with not being allowed in the sandbox. His red legs pinwheeled and he peeped. Meaner abandoned his post and high-stepped over to Steve. 

“Can they _climb_ over the gate?” 

“Nope.” Bucky stacked a second gate on top of the first and slotting the bar into place. “Not anymore.” It clamped to the walls. Not, Sam imagined, very sturdily, but Natasha nodded and sat down, her unusual number of bracelets clinking together. She was a healthy few steps away from the gates, but progress was progress. 

“Are we ready?” Lecter had started beating his wings against Steve’s hands. “He wants his sandbox. Or Meaner. Or both.”

Sam threw a handful of freeze-dried ants into the grass part of the sandbox and some extra duckweed into the pool. Mean and Meanest went after the duckweed, so: “We’re fine.” 

“Thank god,” Steve said. Meaner was starting to bob his head ominously at Steve’s belt. Steve let go and Lecter took flight. He put an immense amount of effort into dropping almost straight down. Meaner snapped a half-wing in Steve’s direction anyway before he bent his neck double to start nosing Lecter over to the grass. 

Sam backed up, though he stayed between the sandbox and the pool. They couldn’t be sure Lecter and Meaner wouldn’t start fighting, but he trusted he or Steve or Bucky could get in there before a serious injury happened; Meaner was too tall for Lecter to reach with his spur, and Lecter was too short for Meaner to hit with his half-wings. More to the point, until that happened, Meaner and Lecter seemed to want to hang out. Mean and Meanest were less impressed with partridges. 

“God, they’re ugly,” Bucky said fondly. He settled in by the new pool, which was five feet deep and had advertised itself as having room for eight adults. “Can you believe people poetry about these dicks? Their necks are fucking ridiculous. Like ropes.” 

“ _You’re_ fucking ridiculous,” Steve said. He took another step away from the sandbox as Meaner started churning the dirt and sand up with his wide feet. He dipped down to clack his beak at the bugs he was kicking to the sides. Lecter walked along behind him, snapping them up with blurring jabs of his head and peeping. “The other day you said Lecter looked like ‘those designs monks make in sand’ and practically started crying about the ‘blue’ patches on his wings. Which are gray.”

“This is why you never made it as an artist.” Bucky shook his head. “Tragic. Sam, tell him Lecter’s got blue on his wings. It’s on his head and chest too, Steven Grant. I’m embarrassed for you.” 

“It’s… slate-blue,” Sam said. 

“ _Slate,_ ” Steve said. “Slate- _blue_ ,” Bucky said at the same time. 

Natasha sighed. “What do you see in them? I’m trying to watch a real live nature documentary and they can’t shut up.” 

“They are the nature documentary,” Sam said automatically. She’d left that one wide open. 

“So Meaner’s adopted Lecter,” she said, dropping her chin to her knees. “Is it because they both have little black masks?” 

“Cygnets are gray,” Steve said doubtfully. He started to bend over to pet Lecter and recoiled when Meaner flattened himself against the ground and hissed. 

“How is this going to work at the farm?” Natasha gestured to them. Her bracelets rattled. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Steve said. 

“It’s not like they have to be together all the time,” Sam agreed, half out of pity for Steve. “I don’t think Meaner remembers Lecter when he’s not around. Luckily. When he’s here Meaner really wants Lecter to go swimming with him.” 

“He’s meeting him halfway with all this digging.” Steve walked around the sandbox to Sam’s side. “He’s gotta wonder why Lecter won’t compromise.” 

“Lecter knows better than to trust waterfowl,” Bucky said. “Look at those webbed feet, Lecter. What’re those for? Nothing good.” He rested his hands on the edge of the pool. Mean and Meanest ignored him, which was about as friendly as they got. 

Steve ducked behind Sam to rest his chin on Sam’s shoulder, arms around his waist. “Meaner’s also wondering why Lecter is so dirty.” 

Sam snorted. “Yeah, swans are real neat-freaks.” They weren’t even white at the moment; their feathers were edged brown with sand and pool water. 

“Okay, to be fair, the swans aren’t the ones who’ve had us kicking sand out of our socks for weeks because they got a sand-bath installed in the bathroom.” 

“Swans,” Bucky said with relish, “shit in water and then drink it. There’s no filter on real pond water, Steve. Waterfowl’re disgusting. Like fish.” 

Sam rubbed his nose to hide his smile. “Lecter isn’t holding it when he does that scratching thing that’s coming up. You do know the sand isn’t pure by the time he buries himself in it.” 

“Precognition!” Bucky pointed at Sam. It put his finger in reach of Meanest, who let out a fluting sound and bit it. “Goddamnit. Add it to the list, Steve. Our bird king can tell birds’ futures.” Sam would have rolled his eyes, but he’d had to stop doing that in response to Bucky’s bird king jokes or strain a muscle. 

Lecter did start his scratching dance, spinning his legs in high circles and tossing sand up on alternate sides until he was half-buried, digging around with his beak. He always did that after a snack. Meaner, as he tended to do, lost interest once there were no more bugs to churn up and he was getting sand in his feathers from Lecter’s spray. He waddled back toward the pool. 

Natasha laughed. “You’re a bad influence,” she told Bucky. “Their legs are too thin. There’s too much bird on top and too much foot on the bottom.” 

“Like boats on spindles.” Bucky grinned and flicked his fingers through the water. “Natasha gets it.”

Meaner stopped in front of them and plucked at Sam’s pants with his beak, honking so rhythmically it sounded like snuffling. 

“Hi,” Sam said. 

Meaner did something that looked like nodding, butted against Sam’s hand, and padded up the ramp to the pool. Sam was spared any commentary on this coincidence, but not spared much else, by the sound of the Bifrost hitting his back yard again. 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Natasha caught Sam on the stairs up from the basement and started putting her bracelets on him. “Nat,” he said. “What the hell?”

“You’re a king,” she said. “He’s a space Viking. He understands gold.” 

Sam revaluated what Natasha was doing wearing broad, overlarge bracelets and—thumb rings on her, normal rings when she stuck them on him—but he didn’t have time to ask her about it. Steve and Bucky had beaten them upstairs. He worried that Bucky would needle Odin until he could provoke a fight, but that turned out not to be possible. Odin wasn’t having any conversations, unfriendly or otherwise, with Bucky. Or with Steve, or with Natasha. He did look at them when they came into the kitchen where he waited already, a flick of his eye over each of them, but that was the extent of his interest. 

“Samuel,” he said. 

“Sam’s fine,” Sam said, without much hope. It’d taken him months to get Thor to quit it with the Samuel. With any luck, he wouldn’t be around Odin enough to make progress on the issue. He pushed a bracelet down his wrist. “Hi, how’ve you been, uh, sir. Odin.” 

“I apologize for my lateness. It was however necessary, to ensure the highest quality in a crop not previously grown on Asgard.” 

“Sure,” said Sam as Odin hefted what had to be twenty-pound sack in one hand. “No problem. Anyway, this is Steve—” He’d seen enough pirate movies to realize what Odin was doing with the sack, but not enough to realize what Odin was doing with the sack before it was too late. “We could just open the—no. Cool. Never mind,” he said as Odin ripped it along a seam and gave it a shake over the table. 

Black oil sunflower seeds the size of his thumbnail spilled into a hill on the table and flooded onto the floor. At least they didn’t do the damage to his table gold doubloons would have. “I trust these are to your satisfaction.” 

“These look great,” Sam said. He shot Natasha a dark look when she muffled a laugh against Bucky’s shoulder. Just for that she was cleaning the damn things up. Odin kept waiting, so Sam grabbed a handful and looked them over. He felt like he was pretending to critique his niece’s artwork, although doing it for an old white guy he didn’t know switched things up some. “Yeah,” Sam said, “these’ll do. Got some good hulls on ’em. Thanks.” 

“Excellent.” Odin lowered himself into the nearest chair. 

Sam assumed he expected to see Hugin and Munin again. They hadn’t left, despite Steve’s best intentions, but Sam couldn’t produce them on demand, either. “So like I was saying,” he tried, “this is Steve. Rogers. Captain America.” 

“Yes.” Odin glanced at Steve again and said, to Sam, “My son has spoken of him, I believe.” 

“Okay.” Based on that non-reaction, Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to introduce Bucky, who demanded at least a shudder or a nod in response to ‘the Winter Soldier.’ Maybe if he buried the lead. Natasha liked not being recognized. “And this is Natasha and Bucky,” he said quickly. 

“I see,” said Odin. “Will they be serving us lunch?” 

Natasha made a sound that could pass as a sneeze. Bucky swung a chair around and sat down, releasing Lecter to run around the floor kicking sunflower seeds. “I’m not serving shit, but Steve had better hop to it. You heard the kings, Steven Grant.” 

“It’s late,” said Sam. “Let’s settle for a snack this time.” 

“We can have that Tula gingerbread I made the other day,” Natasha said. “Steve and I will get it. You sit down, your majesty.” She pinched Sam’s arm on her way by him. She probably, judging by his jump, pinched Steve’s arm too. 

Sam tried to resign himself gracefully to the amount of fun she was going to make of them. Every time she made Tula gingerbread after this, to start with. That was going to be rough. He sat down at the opposite end of the table from Odin, and chose to mentally designate his end the head. “You’ll like it,” he said. “It’s got honey in it. There’s honey in mead, right?” 

“There is,” Odin said, in the tolerant tone Thor used when his human friends said something technically correct but, as far as he could see, irrelevant. 

Steve put a plate of gingerbread in front of Sam, pushing seeds out of the way and onto the floor, and used the opportunity to whisper, “You owe me.”

“Do I?” Sam hissed back. He’d gotten pretty good at talking without moving his lips, living with Bucky full-time and Natasha part-time. “Because there’s a partridge sitting on my foot, and I didn’t buy him. You’re lucky you’re not in a French maid outfit.” Which, actually, now that he thought about it. 

Steve paused. “Only if I can get you an MLB cheerleading outfit. With the little shorts and the jersey.” 

“Hey.” Bucky rapped his knuckles on the table. “Mind your manners, Steve. Odin’s waiting.” 

“Right,” Steve said. “Thanks. You can get your own, Buck.” He stretched to hand Odin’s plate over without stepping away from Sam. Bucky pouted so colossally at Natasha that she handed him a plate, stepping wide around Lecter’s spot under the table. 

“So how’s Asgard?” Sam said. He tried to rest his arms on the table and a bracelet clanked. Every move felt weird with the bracelets on. Odin kept darting looks at them Sam could only describe as approving, though, so he had to trust Natasha’s instincts on this. “Everything shipshape?”

“Shipshape,” Bucky repeated into his ginger bread. 

“Asgard is as well as can be expected, given its recent shocks,” Odin said. “I am kept busy repairing the damage done by war and treason.” 

“Tough.” Sam took a bite of gingerbread. The rings glinted. This was why he didn’t wear jewelry. 

Natasha said, “You don’t have to take time out of your day delivering these. Sam would be fine with someone else doing it. Lady Sif, maybe.” 

“The debt is mine, and I will continue to pay it.” Odin didn’t bother to look at her. 

“Yikes,” Natasha said. Sam assumed it was about Odin’s manners until she jumped onto the kitchen counter and said, “Sam. _Sam_.” 

“Ah, shit,” said Steve. “Meanest….” 

The escaped swan looming in the kitchen doorway swayed its neck over its back. It looked at the seeds on the floor with interest and honked. Sam pointed at it. “You can head right back downstairs,” he said. He was kidding. He realized it was a bad joke to make in front of Odin, and started thinking up imaginary disciplinary actions for his subjects, at about the point that the swan fluted, turned around, and padded back into the living room. A few seconds later they could hear it plopping down the stairs to the basement. 

Odin, to whom this no doubt seemed totally normal, kept eating his gingerbread. There were crumbs in his beard. Sam tossed him a napkin. 

Bucky, eyebrows high, grinned at Steve. _‘Put it on the list,’_ he mouthed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how credible the white-crowned sparrow experiment is, whether it's been peer-reviewed or replicated lol, but I did read about it in the published work of nonfiction _Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the World's Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers_ , by Amy Sutherland. It's supposed to have been performed by Gary Wilson, a teacher at the school.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ([on tumblr](http://adirotynd.tumblr.com/post/135808556615/twelve-birds-of-christmas-3))
> 
> Enjoy, and comment should it strike your fancy~!

They threw a chicken-warming party. The chickens, on loan from the Bartons, were unimpressed and couldn’t be with Lecter unsupervised, so they weren’t around for much of the party in their honor. This didn’t impact the festivities, which Sam knew for a fact Bucky had engineered as an opportunity to see Thor and Steve tipsy. 

“The man,” Sam informed the chickens strutting around his guest bedroom and jabbing up seeds from the carpet, “is a menace. I’m still gonna benefit from his evil work though, so you ladies hang tight.”

One of the chickens, muttering to itself, pecked his shoe. 

Downstairs, Thor and Steve had already progressed to arm-wrestling. Bucky looked on, delighted. Sam empathized. Still: “Not on my coffee table, you don’t,” he said. “You move that and mess around on the floor like the damn teenagers you are.” 

“Tell me again,” said Jane. She hooked an elbow around his and handed him a bottle of their mere-mortal beer, clinking hers against it like they were making a toast. 

“Ripped the bag right apart. Like a bank robber in a B action flick.”

Steve and Thor, table out of the way, were flat on the floor with their arms bunched together. Bucky mimed a prayer of gratitude at Sam and Jane snorted. Not like she was looking away either. “And the other stuff,” she said. 

“No reaction to Steve,” Sam started the list. “Looked me in the eye every time he talked to me. Ate at my table, no comments about goats.”

Jane tipped her bottle back. “Let’s make me the queen of something—something easier. What’s easier than birds? Can I do dogs, or is everyone in charge of dogs? Odin’s such an asshole, but Thor would float right off the ground with joy.” 

“You’d think dating a god would get you off the hook for the aging prejudiced father-in-law detail.” 

“What are the odds,” Jane sighed. “I could sit down and literally calculate those odds, and he wouldn’t be impressed because I’m… not queen of anything. Or immortal. How about rats? Or pigs? They’re smart, I could train them to do things.” 

“I think training animals is a pretty full-time gig.”

“Maybe I could make Darcy do it.” 

“That’s interesting,” said Bucky, reaching over the back of the couch to pull Sam closer. Jane, attached at Sam’s arm, came along in tandem. “Full-time gig, huh? Hey Sam, how’d you know the chickens wanted to go upstairs?”

“I didn’t know shit, it was an educated guess and we still don’t know how they feel about it. Because they’re birds.” 

“If you say so. Hey Jane, did he mention how the swans do what he tells them?” 

“ _One_ swan did. _Once._ It got upstairs and didn’t like what it saw so it went back down.” 

Bucky grinned too wide, and Sam braced himself for some cheesy crap. “That’s a damn lie, because when it got upstairs it saw your face.” 

“Man, you need to start biting your tongue when that shit springs into your head.” 

“Then who’d tell you how gorgeous you are? Steve? He can’t string two words together. Look at him, he can’t even beat Thor at arm-wrestling. He’s a disaster. Come here.” He pulled Sam over the back of the couch, then gave Jane a hand. She tripped and ended up half in Sam’s lap anyway; it didn’t take much alcohol to throw her balance off. 

Lecter, who’d been watching from beside the armchair, ran over to stand on the dip of Steve’s back. When that moved around too much he flapped to the arm of the couch and skittered over to Bucky’s lap. He stood there jerking his head to study Steve and Thor’s battle, cheeping intermittently. “He doesn’t look like much of a killer,” Jane said. 

“He’s so messed up.” Sam rested his head against hers. She was too convenient a height not to. “He thinks he’s a baby, but he also thinks he outranks every single other bird. Or he did until the ravens and the swans. We’re working on the chickens.” He grabbed Bucky’s hand to stop him from petting Lecter. “Who are his next covey, so we can’t keep acting like he’s ours.” 

“He still is for now,” Bucky said, but held onto Sam’s hand. 

“Can I see?” Jane got to her feet, depriving Sam of his headrest and snagging a button of her plaid flannel on his sleeve. “Oops. I swore to Darcy I’d take an interspecies bird family video.” 

“If you can get me up,” said Sam. “And if Lecter comes with us. I’ve gotta stop carrying him places.” 

“One thing at a time.” Jane pulled his hand away from Bucky, braced herself, and hauled. The force exerted was negligible, but Sam got up anyway. She’d probably MacGyver a pulley system in his living room otherwise. Bucky made a weird noise; Sam figured he was pouting. 

“You coming, Lecter?” Sam started for the stairs. The bird ran full-tilt after him. “I think the dude who raised him taught him some commands,” he told Jane. 

“See? If he can do it with an animal that’s not even domesticated….” She went up the stairs carefully to avoid stepping on Lecter, who was hopping and flapping up them with zero regard for where human feet landed. 

“It was definitely a full-time commitment. Look at this.” Sam walked into the upstairs bathroom and put a hand on the door. Lecter’s peeping increased in pitch. He ran into the bathroom so hard he slid into the side of the bathtub. “He can’t be away from all three of us at once. Ever. And it’s not like having an anxious dog or whatever, where it’s something wrong with the animal you could maybe fix. This is how he’s supposed to be. He should be with a bunch of other birds who don’t have to go to work, or shopping, or out to dinner.” 

“Or to save the world.”

“I was including that under ‘go to work,’ you know how that is.” Sam took her hand on the way back out of the bathroom. “Here, the chickens are in the spare room.” 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“Here’s what we’ve been working on.” Sam scattered a handful of crickets (freeze-dried; Lecter got live ones, but only in the basement) on the floor. They were going to have to tear this rug up anyway. A vacuum would have done it for the seeds, but the shit from three chickens was doing permanent damage. It put Lecter’s little pellets in perspective. He waited for the chickens, heads cocked and eyes shining, to locate the bumper crop and dive in. 

“They’re funny-looking, right?” said Jane. “It’s been a while since I saw a chicken, but I swear this isn’t what they look like.”

“They’re Faverolles hens.” Sam reached over and tickled one of their huge ridiculous ruffs. “They’re laid back, make good pets, so they get on with the Barton kids. A bitch to keep clean, though.” He waved at their fluffy feet, dragging through insect pieces and seeds. “They’re big, which is good for this guy. I asked Clint for his meanest hens, to be honest. A mean Faverolles isn’t all that hardcore, but they’re less likely to get, you know, slashed.” He let Lecter go. “Be nice,” he cautioned. Lecter peeped and scraped his foot before dashing at the nearest chicken, heels drumming. 

The chicken made a sound with several consonants and no vowels in it, head swinging around like an ax. Its feathers started to bristle. Lecter stopped short, but then darted at a seed near the chicken’s feet. The chicken pecked him. Sam flexed his fingers. 

“Are you going to break them up?” Jane had sat down pretty abruptly on the bed and half-fallen against his side. Her jaw shifted against his shoulder as she spoke. 

“This is normal,” Sam said. “They’ve got different rules than people do. He’s a fowl, he’s gotta fit in with fowl. Be able to get in a disagreement over who eats first without going right to... killing them. These girls are too tall for him to get all that well, so that helps.” Lecter had backed up a few steps and was eyeing the chickens and the disappearing bugs on the floor alternately. 

“You told them to play nice, though. That’s cheating.” 

Sam laughed, but before he could answer Bucky appeared in the doorway. “You better come down. Pretty sure Steve’s about to give Thor a lap-dance.” 

“And you walked out on that for us?” Sam slapped a hand to his chest. Jane giggled. 

“You stole half my show, coming up here,” Bucky said. “They’re not the only ones who get cuddly when they’re tipsy.” He gestured to the nonexistent space between Sam and Jane. “Granted you’re not as proactive as Steve. I’ll pay you to make out.” 

“Your uncle Buck wants to sleep on the couch for a week,” Sam informed the chickens. 

“Pay us how much?” said Jane. “Astrophysics isn’t a phenomenally well-funded field, and Darcy’s going to want a real salary soon.” 

“The other reason you might want to come downstairs is you have visitors,” Bucky said. “How much you asking, though?”

“You can talk about it when you’re sober,” Sam said, standing up. He took Jane, Lecter, and a handful of consolation bugs with him. “Who’s here, Natasha?” 

“No, not Natasha.” 

Bucky’s tone was weird. Sam paused at the top of the stairs. “Wait, who is it?”

“They, uh. I think they opened the kitchen window on their own somehow.” 

Sam’s first thought was gremlins, so he’d maybe had more beer than he realized. When the three—four—of them got downstairs, though, there were two outsized sapient alien-ravens perched on the back of the couch. It said something about his life that this made more sense than anything he’d come up with on his own. “Hey, guys,” he said. Lecter thumped over to Steve, who was sprawled on the floor leaning against Thor’s legs. He climbed onto Steve’s lap. 

“Goddamnit,” Bucky muttered. “Any second now, he would’ve.” 

Thor was in the armchair, watching the ravens and not getting a lap-dance from Steve, who had turned to petting Lecter. 

“Oh,” Sam said. “You can clear this up for me. Which one’s Hugin and which one’s Munin?” 

Thor squinted at the birds. “Hugin,” he said, pointing at the brown-eyed one. “Munin.” His finger moved to the blue-eyed one. “They’re both… they were the bane of our childhood. With Heimdall at least we could reason. But once one or both were set on us, we could make no move that wasn’t reported to our father. We couldn’t speak to them, even if they’d let us close enough. They simply watched and reported.” He grimaced. “We earned that mistrust, truth be told. Now, though… perhaps it’s best Father cannot simply demand an exact report on any subject he wishes. Heimdall will tell him what he ought to know.” Munin ducked until his beak touched the back of the couch and let out a series of little croaks. 

Jane went to Thor and tipped over the arm of the chair into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and Bucky huffed. “I could see that anytime,” he told Sam. “Dare you to get in there with them.” 

“You mind your manners. This might get back to that poor boy’s dad if these birds change their minds.” 

“Sounds to me like he’d be happier to hear you were on Thor’s lap than that Jane was.” 

“Get a hold of yourself before I marry up and leave your asses in the dust.” Sam dragged him over to sit down with Steve, whose lips had been getting tighter with every ‘we’ out of Thor’s mouth. “Those,” Sam said, “are some wild-ass ravens.” Which was true. They looked so out of place on the back of the couch, it was ridiculous. Like they’d dragged bare branches and starlight in with them, like the wall and lamp behind them was a cardboard backdrop they’d tear through any second. “C’mere,” he said anyway, stretching out an arm. 

Hugin came in a rush of wingbeats. There was ragged furry flesh clinging to one of the talons that closed around Sam’s arm. Hugin’s grip was crushing, but it didn’t break skin. Munin swept in a second later and landed on Sam’s folded knee. 

“Whoa,” Steve said breathlessly. He cupped both hands over Lecter. 

“It’s okay,” said Sam. “We’re all okay, right? We get along.” He raised an eyebrow at Steve. “Which is the opposite of what the plan was.” 

“Well,” Steve said. “Oops.” 

“It’s nice knowing Lecter, though,” Sam relented. 

“And the swans,” Bucky said. “And the—hens. The three hens. The three—Steven Grant. You got Sam _three French hens._ ” 

Jane started laughing. Munin made a couple slap-sharp sounds and pecked Sam’s hand. “And you guys,” Sam said. “It’s nice knowing you too.” 

“ _And_ a partridge,” said Bucky. “Sam. Can we get a pear tree and four more swans?” 

“No, we can’t get four more swans, James Buchanan. We’re not keeping the birds we’ve got. We’re gonna get Lecter’s act together and they’re all going straight outdoors.” 

“James Buchanan,” Bucky and Steve repeated at the same time, in outrage and amusement respectively. 

Thor reached between Bucky and Sam to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I had my doubts about this arrangement,” he said. “But I wish to thank you. My father complains of tending these flowers, but it would be an easy thing to ask another to do it for him and he does not. He seems happier at that task than at any other.” 

Sam nodded. It wasn’t like he was actually all that invested in Odin’s wellbeing, but he felt for Thor. “Good,” he said. “You know, I’m glad he’s… chilling out, or whatever.” He ran a finger down Munin’s neck and back. The feathers were slick. Munin’s throat pulsed. 

“Look at you.” Bucky leaned closer. Sam suspected he was trying to trap Thor’s hand on his shoulder. “Bird king.” 

“Fuck off, they’re not normal birds. Are you?” His arm was getting tired. Hugin stalked closer along it, stepping forward with his left leg before sliding the right leg to meet it. He croaked and jabbed in the general direction of Thor’s hand and Bucky’s face. “Hey, now.”

Hugin had already won. Thor and Bucky backed off. Hugin settled on Sam’s shoulder, making that gargling chuckle sound and folding his legs under himself. The smell was overpowering, this close, especially on too many beers. It didn’t seem polite to bring up. 

Munin bent over the side of Sam’s knee to inspect Lecter, who cheeped and stabbed at Munin’s toe. Munin rapped him on the head. 

“Hey!” said Steve. Munin’s neck retracted for a second before he snaked out again and added Steve’s knee to his list of targets. “ _Hey._ ”

“It’s no use,” said Thor. “They will do as they please, my friend.” 

“Lecter’s okay,” said Sam, as Lecter shook his head furiously. “He’ll catch up.” He put a hand out to pat Lecter’s back. The little dude had just gotten beat up twice. 

Munin cackled and pecked Sam’s knuckles. 

“That counted,” Steve said instantly. “They are too jealous. It worked a little bit.”

“Yeah, thanks, Steve, them inside the house and pecking me when I try to touch another bird is exactly what we were going for.” 

“Aw, you love each and every one.” Bucky prodded his leg. 

“That’s not the point.” 

“It’s the point,” said Jane. “I live with Darcy half of the year. Love in the time of intense annoyance is definitely the point.” 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Sam had tried, on the spot, to come up with a specific amount of sunflower seeds for an extraterrestrial king to pay him as back taxes. An amount that didn’t draw this out, but didn’t sound suspiciously small either. He’d said ten bags. That hadn’t sounded like a whole lot, especially since sunflowers apparently seeded really damn fast on Asgard. But it did mean, at minimum, nine more visits from Odin. 

Eight more, after this. It was a good thing Odin didn’t understand shit about the U.S. economy or he’d realize he was actually costing Sam money. Sam considered setting Jane on the math there—he’d given up after a few seconds himself—but considering he’d given half the bag to Mrs. Perle last time as an apology for the Bifrost, he thought it was a safe bet. He’d also listened to Mrs. Perle’s comments about “the kind of bird refuge you’re running over there, young man, and have you considered adding a cockatiel,” so there was emotional wear and tear to consider. On the other hand, he was feeding Steve and Bucky and Thor. Adding Odin to the list couldn’t make much difference. 

“Now does everybody have enough?” Steve winced when a beam of sunshine hit his eyes. 

“We’re good,” Sam said before anyone else could answer. He doubted Steve was in agony, given his constitution, but he’d done plenty of fetching and carrying for a dude with an Asgardian-ale induced headache. Normally everyone would have pitched in, serving Sam’s pancakes the morning after a get-together, but Steve was on his own today. Jane had caught an early flight to Phoenix, Thor wasn’t helping in front of his dad, Sam had a reputation to maintain, and Bucky—actually, Bucky might not have helped in any case. 

Steve collapsed on the couch next to Sam and grabbed his plate off the coffee table. “I saw you stealing mine,” he told Bucky, who shrugged. 

“Can we share with the birds?” he asked, tugging a crumb off a pancake that had once been Steve’s. 

“No, you can’t share my homemade pancakes with an animal that’s got like ten taste buds.”

Bucky pouted. “Maybe she can smell it. Isn’t taste mostly smell anyway?” The chicken in question hopped onto his boot and fought to balance, scraping at the leather with its five-toed fuzz-covered foot. It babbled to itself, one eye trained on the table. “See, she wants some.” 

“She wants it because you have it,” Odin said; “Yeah, because you’re eating it,” Sam said at the same time. 

“It is a waste of time,” Odin told Sam, spreading butter on each pancake of his third helping. “Mine never did learn.”

“We stopped feeding your ravens,” Thor protested. 

“Because you no longer enjoyed their company. Not because you learned better than to give an animal anything it begs for. The grooms were forever complaining.” 

Bucky looked up from the chicken whose beard he was tickling. “You have horses?” 

“We’re not getting horses,” Sam said. 

Steve said something indistinct around a mouthful of pancake; the word _borzoi_ was involved. Bucky started whistling “The Twelve Days of Christmas” piercingly. Steve groaned and rubbed his forehead. 

“You have none here?” Odin jerked his chin at Thor. “You may bring Samuel a selection of horses for his…” he flicked his fork at the living room. “Abode. It will be a gift, a sign of goodwill between our kingdoms.” 

Sam had, since he met Tony Stark and James Barnes, been offered gifts ranging from a flying car he couldn’t have fueled to a rocket launcher he couldn’t have fired. He had the response down. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s a really nice gesture, I’ll remember you offered. Listen, though. Do not bring me any horses. Okay? We clear?” 

Thor nodded his deep understanding of human folly. “The zoning laws in this country are barbaric, Father. No horses would be permitted in this neighborhood.” 

“As you say.” Odin looked doubtful. Another strike against Midgard. 

Sam snapped his fingers under the coffee table to distract Bucky’s chicken before it wore him down. He ended up with all three gabbling around his feet. Lecter came careening along the back of the couch and plunged into his lap. “Sure,” he said. “Good. Odin, you want to hand me that bag?” He tossed a handful of sunflowers seeds on the floor along the couch. He’d have kept a handful back for Lecter even a few days ago, but he didn’t now. “Go on,” he said. “Get in there with your new friends.” Lecter huddled further into his lap, shivering. “Oops,” said Sam. “Okay, never mind.” He ran a hand down Lecter’s back. “Maybe we’ve been pushing him too hard.” Bucky looked over, a shade too intently. 

Lecter gave one final shudder and stood up. Sam’s jeans were damp and getting sticky. “Nope,” he said. “Never mind, he’s fine. He’s just being a little asshole.” He set Lecter on the floor. “I’m gonna go clean up—” 

Steve swore and plucked something out of Sam’s lap. “You know what they say about assumptions.” 

Bucky grabbed the egg from Steve. “No one’s eating this. How do you hollow them out? I’m starting a collection.” He flicked a seed Lecter’s way. “Good going, buddy.” 

Sam patted a napkin ineffectively at his jeans. “I mean, sure, knock yourself out, but this is good, he—she—see, this is why English is a crappy language.” 

“I admit I would prefer that it retained a second-person pronoun specifying the plural,” said Thor, looking directly away from Odin. 

Odin ignored him. “A happy occasion,” he said to Sam. “May she bear many more. A pity to waste them,” he eyed Bucky, “but if you see fit to allow it.” 

“That’s disgusting, I’m not eating my grandbabies. Look how pretty it is.” Bucky held the egg up to the light. It was light brown, speckled with darker brown. As eggs went, Sam told himself, it wasn’t remarkable. Definitely not the prettiest damn egg he’d ever seen. Bucky pushed more seeds out from under the nearest chicken and closer to Lecter, glaring. “They’re not letting her eat enough.” 

“She has to wait her turn,” Sam said. “They’ve got a pecking order.”

“Precisely.” Odin polished off his last bite of pancake. “In food, in drink, in spaces to sleep. So long as there are sufficient resources, whether they come first or last makes no difference. They all get their share.” 

“They’re all fine,” Sam agreed. He was getting weirded out by agreeing with Odin, but here they were. “They’re more relaxed when they’ve figured out a pretty solid hierarchy, and it’s not like Lecter’s gonna go hungry, here or at the Barton place. They’re not doing it to… deprive her, or anything. It’s a system. The rooster’ll find food for these girls and call them over to it, even let them eat first. Nobody’s out to starve her. Not like Clint would let that happen, but you know. It’s not that they don’t like her, is what I’m saying. This is just how they work, and she’s got a couple million years of hardware in her brain telling her this way of doing things makes sense.” 

“They’re wise,” Odin said. “Many of the sapient species would do well to follow their example.” 

_And there we go._ “They’re chickens,” Sam said. “It works for them because they’re birds, not a model for human society. They’re supposed to function differently than we do, this isn’t _Animal Farm._ ” 

Thor looked sideways at his dad, alarmed. Odin shrugged, expression tolerant. 

“Anyway, this is good,” Sam repeated. “The egg. Laying means she’s getting comfortable. And pretty soon after the chickens. She likes her new covey.” 

“She’s getting comfortable _here,_ ” Bucky said. “With us _and_ the chickens.” 

“Yeah, but Bucky. It’s not good for her to just be with us, and we can’t keep the chickens in the house forever. She’ll be happier outside with other birds than she would be here alone, or even here with us, if we could just… sit here all day. Which we can’t. Remember the fit she threw when you were here alone and you had to take out the garbage?” 

Bucky slumped in his chair, cradling the egg. 

“He will come to see the truth of what you say.” Odin, with all the aplomb of Bucky stealing from Steve, took one of Thor’s pancakes. “Only time can teach them, Samuel. You must let it do so.” 

Sam didn’t ask whether that was the technique that had worked so well for Odin.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ([on tumblr](http://adirotynd.tumblr.com/post/135871310675/twelve-birds-of-christmas-4))
> 
> Enjoy, and comment should it strike your fancy~!

“This is a good idea,” said Steve, with conviction born of hours convincing himself this was the case. 

“Sure it is,” said Bucky, with conviction born of the thought having crossed his mind. 

“Not right now it’s not,” said Sam, despite targeted attacks on his common sense by an adorable old lady and not one but two boyfriends. “Once we let the other birds go it will be.” 

“It’s good for Lecter.” Bucky slid the tray into the bottom of the cockatiels’ cage and twisted the clamps. Lecter stalked back and forth behind him, clucking, neck twisted and head darting as he inspected the three cockatiels. “There’ll be lots of bird sounds she’s not used to when she’s living outside. Plus the other chickens, and visiting geese…. She needs to get used to different birds popping up in her life.” 

“It’s good for Mrs. Perle.” Steve put an arm over Sam’s shoulders. “Giving her a key to this place for when we’re gone is going to extend her life by a decade.” 

It had turned out Mrs. Perle wasn’t hinting about cockatiels at Sam’s house because she was a champion of the birds in general (although she was) or because she wanted an excuse to complain about the noise (although she did). She couldn’t keep up with the full-time care of three cockatiels anymore, and she wanted to offload them somewhere she could still see them sometimes and be sure they were safe. She’d said this last while peering over the tops of her glasses. Sam, who was hard-pressed not to feel defensive in the face of tiny old black women glaring at him like he’d done something wrong, might have briefly considered retiring from the Avengers after all. 

“I’m gonna burn my birth certificate. Give that woman my mom’s full name and she’ll find her phone number for sure.” He leaned over and kissed Steve anyway. It’d be a good idea in a week. “You both remember I work tomorrow, right? You’ve got… Jesus. Ten birds to look after while I’m out. Look after and _clean up_ after.” 

“Ten, yeah, because you’re taking two with you.” Steve tilted his head at the window. Hugin and Munin, perched on Mrs. Perle’s roof, stared in at the new arrivals. “We’ll manage the other ones.” 

“Yeah, don’t let them in if they double back. Be like letting a cat in with these little guys.” 

“Aw, we’ll sic the swans on them.” Bucky stood up slowly. Lecter took off in one of his around-the-room circuits. “We ready?” 

“Not until we take Lecter our and cover the windows so they don’t fly into the glass. And you’re not forming a swan army.” 

“How about snow geese? It’s thematic.” 

“Your main concern when we decided to get cockatiels was how fast you could teach them swearwords,” Steve said. “I don’t think you should be in charge of a bird army.” 

Bucky brightened. “Hey! An army of _swearing_ birds.” 

Sam snorted and waved at the ravens. “See you guys later,” he told them, in case they could read lips, and pulled the shade down. “We’re gonna have to put mesh over these so the light gets in, if we want to give the birds the run of the room full-time.” 

“I can do that.” Bucky toyed with the latch of the cage. 

“And Lecter and I can clear out for now.” Steve opened the door and clicked his tongue at Lecter, who thudded into the hallway, noticed Steve wasn’t keeping up, and thudded back. 

Sam looked at Bucky. “Huh. Sure would be nice if we could all be in here for this. Too bad Lecter can’t be alone at all, ever.” 

“Okay, okay, so you’re right again.” 

“As usual.” Steve grinned at Sam’s very modest shrug. He bent to pick Lecter up before remembering they weren’t doing that anymore. “We’ll go visit the chickens. Have fun.” He closed the door behind them. 

“Now can I open it?” 

“Go ahead. Just don’t expect anything spectacular. They’ve only been here a day. It could take us a while to even train them to perch on our hands inside the cage, never mind come out; they’re not used to us.” 

Bucky opened the cage door and stepped back. Two of the three cockatiels zipped out and made a beeline for Sam. “Jesus,” he said, and put his hands up in time for one to perch on his left. The other one ignored the offer and touched down on his right shoulder. 

“You’re not _always_ right,” Bucky said. No one did smug like Bucky. 

“Okay, well, they’ve been pets all their lives. I guess I overestimated how weird it’d be for them to move.” The gray-spackled tiel on his hand—Lill—leaned down and nibbled on his thumb. Sam hadn’t expected to handle one today, between their nerves and Bucky’s excitement over long-term pets, and he wasn’t wearing a glove. He braced himself, but the tiel didn’t bite down. The blue one on his shoulder—Daze, if he had them straight—started growling in his ear. 

“Yeah, that or they recognize their king when they see him. On the days we’re not here, do songbirds fly in the window and help you get dressed and make breakfast?” 

“You’re not allowed to watch Disney movies with the Barton kids anymore. You’re too impressionable.” 

“Fuck you I am, your majesty.” Bucky put his hand in the cage and held it still. “Up,” he said. The last cockatiel, the only one with rosy cheeks, bobbed in place as it considered the offer. “Anyway, _Cinderella_ was your niece’s fault and _Snow White_ was Steve’s.” 

Lill took a rolling-gaited run up Sam’s arm to his left shoulder and whistled. 

“Was that ‘peek-a-boo’?” Bucky looked up from Russ and laughed. “That’s a yes.” 

Sam tried not to move as he peered out of the corners of his eyes. The tiels prickled his shoulders as they swayed back and forth, bouncing out on opposite sides of his head at opposite times. _“Peek-a-boo,”_ Lill said in his ear. Or _“Eek-a-oo,”_ but the intent was clear. 

Bucky stifled his laughter. “You didn’t even _ask_ them to do tricks like she said we’d have to.” Russ stepped onto his hand and that shut him up about it. “Wow,” he said softly. “She’s light. Compared to Lecter and the chickens. Should I try to take her out?” 

“Shit, I was going to guess we shouldn’t until tomorrow, but her sisters are out already. Go for it, she can jump off if she’s not up for it.” 

_“Shit,”_ said Daze in his ear. 

“No fucking way,” said Bucky. 

“That wasn’t me. That was _not_ my fault. Cockatiels don’t learn a word from hearing it once!” 

“Samuel Thomas, are you trying to tell me Mrs. Perle taught her birds the word ‘shit’? That’s character defamation of a sweet old lady who’s about to have your mom’s phone number.” Bucky pulled his hand out of the cage, low and steady. Russ shuffled from foot to foot but stayed aboard. Her crest rose and fell rhythmically. “How about you, Russ? Can you say ‘shit’?” Russ hooted like a mourning dove. “Close enough. Look at this little genius. Good girl.” 

Lill chattered in Sam’s ear and took flight for Bucky’s shoulder, where she whistled the peek-a-boo tune again. “Yeah, you’re good too,” Bucky said. “You better be nicer, Sam, or your subjects are gonna stage a revolt and install me as their leader.” 

“Good. It’ll keep me on my toes. Maybe we should have a democratic election.” 

“Can we teach them to punch holes in tiny ballots with their beaks?” 

Sam reached up gingerly to scratch Daze’s chest. She chirruped and tucked her head under his fingers. “That… actually wouldn’t be too hard.” 

“If they elect Steve I’m staging a coup.” 

“Our birds aren’t having a provisionary election. It’s all in for democracy.” 

Lill changed her mind again and flew back to Sam. Bucky laughed. “Captain Birdmerica. Tell her she’s good!” 

“I’m trying not to bribe my constituents.” Sam tickled her back, though, and added, “You’re a real good bird, aren’t you?” 

Lill rested her beak against the lobe of his ear and made a warbling, smacking sound. 

“She’s _kissing_ you,” Bucky said. He held Russ level with his face. “Do you know that trick? Do you give kisses?” Russ bobbed forward and pecked his nose lightly. Once she’d swayed all the way back she made a belated but much more convincing kissing noise than Lill had. “God all-fucking-mighty,” Bucky said. “You smart girl.” 

_“Shit,”_ said Daze. She ran down Sam’s arm to his elbow and then back up to his shoulder, wings spread. 

“Yeah, you’re good too.” Sam considered just giving his mom’s phone number to Mrs. Perle and ripping this band-aid off. 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“Now you have to admit it was a good idea,” Steve said that evening as the chickens settled onto their modified laundry hanger for the night. Lecter was sandwiched between the two biggest chickens and showing no signs of flying back down. “I guess being on watch to make sure our bird doesn’t kill our friend’s chickens isn’t ideal, but I think my jealousy plan finally worked on somebody. She’s mad you spent so much time with the cockatiels.” 

Sam collapsed backward on the couch, halfway into Steve’s lap, and took advantage of Steve’s chest as a pillow. “Or she’s catching on that chickens are a lot more her speed than we are.” 

“Or both.” Steve ran a finger over Sam’s lips. “I’m gonna miss her, but it’ll be great not to have a partridge in bed with us every night.” 

“Or flipping out when you’re the only one here and you want to take a shower.” 

“Yeah, the bathroom thing is intense.” Steve poked Sam’s chest. “Mostly the bedroom thing, though.” 

“Yeah, mostly that,” Sam admitted. “I’m gonna miss her too, though. Like crazy. So yeah, the cockatiels are a good idea.” 

Bucky, just up from the basement, leaned over the couch to kiss Sam and then Steve. He smelled like pond water, and Sam spared a thought for how he and Steve must smell after cleaning up after the chickens. He was going to need a hell of a shower before work tomorrow. “The swans want you to come tuck them in,” Bucky said, sliding over the back of the couch to lie full-length on top of Sam. “They think they should get to stay here.” 

“They’re hyped about living in a basement forever, huh?” 

“Crazy birds. I’m just the messenger.” 

“Well, the cockatiels—who are real mostly-domesticated pets from a long line of real mostly-domesticated pets, not wild birds willing to tolerate people, or barnyard birds we’re imposing on, or birds with an unhealthy emotional dependence on people—told me to let you know they’re looking forward to having our undivided attention.” 

Bucky lifted his head to squint at Sam. “Cheater.” He buried his face in Sam’s neck. 

“Oh, now it’s cheating. Was it cheating five seconds ago, Steve?” 

Bucky, without lifting his face, groped around until he could cover Steve’s mouth. Steve made a noise into his palm, and then a more insistent noise, and then tugged Bucky’s hand off. “No, seriously, I hear something upstairs.” 

It sounded, now Sam was listening, like a phone ringing, but it wasn’t a ringtone he recognized. “I better check on the tiels,” he said. 

He opened the door to the spare room and the ringing stopped. He didn’t want to turn the overhead on, but he pointed his phone’s illumination into the cage. Russ stared at him. The other two seemed to be sleeping, heads tucked onto their backs. “You good?” Sam whispered. “I got out of a super soldier sandwich for this, so if there’s a burglar in here, you let me know now.” Russ looked away. She blinked slowly, settling further down, fluffed up until she looked like the same shape as a chicken. “Okay,” Sam said. “Goodnight.” 

He got the door almost closed before the ring came again. It was coming from the cage. He opened the door quickly enough to spot Lill jerking her head back around between her wings. 

Steve chuckled and Sam jumped a foot straight up. “Goddamnit,” he said. “Sneaky birds and sneaky super dudes. I don’t need this.” 

“It’s just,” said Steve, “they’re _calling_. Bucky’s never going to shut up with that damn song now.” 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Odin dropped the third bag of seeds on Sam’s kitchen floor and Sam thought, _Seven more. Just seven._ It crossed his mind he could keep all ten birds until this was over, in order to lend credibility to his story, and then he had to hope Bucky hadn’t spontaneously developed telepathy. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that happened to them. 

“Thanks for not landing in the back yard this time,” Sam said. The chickens approached the bag cautiously, Lecter trailing behind them and jabbing at the fluff on their feet. “Bucky’ll appreciate it. He’s working hard on that flight run.” 

“Ah,” said Odin. “That structure. Yes. Thor did tell me you would prefer the Bifrost open elsewhere, but I was unaware of the reason.” He looked out the window. Sam could actually see him struggling not to use the word ‘quaint,’ so that was fun. 

“We’re proud of it,” he said. “It’s no floating castle, but we’ve got a different system here. You want to sit down? I don’t have a full meal lying around, but I could heat up some macaroni and cheese.” 

“I will have some. Thank you.” 

Odin, even four visits in, looked as out of place in a suburban kitchen as the damn ravens did. Thor’s sartorial attempts to blend in tended toward the misguided, but at least he made them. Odin kept the resplendent-in-ceremonial-armor look. If anything, he’d upped the glitter quotient. He hadn’t left Gungnir over in the corner today, either. He used it to ease himself into his seat as Sam set the oven. 

“Should I be offering to feed the spear, too?” Sam gestured to it with an oven mitt. “Way Thor talks about that thing, I’m starting to think it’s sentient and I’ve been rude to it this whole time.” 

Even if Gungnir was a conscious spear Sam didn’t imagine it ate, but Odin barely caught the joke. He smiled politely and flexed his fingers. “Traditionally,” he said, “I would not leave Asgard with Gungnir except in cases of dire need. It ought to remain in the hands of the regent in my absence. At the moment, as there is no one with whom to leave it….” 

“Yeah, that’s rough.” Sam judged the oven close enough and put the pot of macaroni in. The creak of the oven door scattered the chickens briefly, but they congregated around the bag again in short order. One of them started tugging at a seam. 

“Are your men not here?” 

Sam coughed and pounded a fist into his chest for good measure. He absolutely wasn’t going to laugh at Odin, Allfather. Especially alone in the house with him. “Uh, no, Steve and Bucky? They’re out running errands. For me.” For cockatiel toys and chicken feed, but it counted. 

“It’s as well.” Odin looked out the window again. Hugin and Munin were perched on the half-finished roof of the flight run, taking turns pecking at it. Bucky suspected them of stealing nails. Sam had doubted whether they could pry a nail out of the metal stripping over the wood, but it was looking more likely by the second. “On Asgard,” Odin said, “there are, as you say, ‘floating castles.’ The flight runs could be as fine.” 

Sam smiled, eyebrows high. “I bet. Good for you guys, that sounds nice. I don’t think the cockatiels are gonna care that much, though.” 

“The gardens are large, and subject to no… zoning laws. Your cockatiels would have far more room.” 

“Dude, how about you finish paying off the ravens before you go trying—” 

“You would be afforded every respect due your station, a courtesy this planet seems incapable of providing. Asgard would again have two regents. Our kingdoms would solidify their long-overdue alliance. My son grieves the loss of his mother, as do I, but he is fond of you and, I am sure, would rather you at my side than a stranger. Still, I will not impose a formal proposal unless you are amenable.” 

Sam waited a few seconds for his brain to reboot. It didn’t help. “That is. Considerate of you. I, um. I’m actually—committed, already.” He revaluated the sense in which Odin had meant ‘your men.’ “Bucky and Steve aren’t just—I mean, they’re Avengers. That’s a pretty big deal here. So, you know, thanks, I’m flattered, but I can’t.” 

“As you think best.” Odin didn’t look insulted. He did look doubtful. “Should you tire of the soldier and Stevengrent, you may apprise me.” 

“I’ll do that. For sure.” The chickens broke into the bag. Sam had given up caring about sunflower seeds all over the floor, so he ignored the scavenger hunt that broke out when they spilled. 

“If you are concerned,” Odin said delicately, “about providing evidence of your title, I would remind you that Thor is not the only son I raised, and that I have been king for a very long time. I am intimately acquainted with the art of creating and maintaining vital fictions.” 

Sam had been meaning to get a new timer, because the buzzer on this one was irritating as hell. Under the circumstances, he was glad to hear its whining crescendo, which had never happened to him before. He’d also never had a dude pre-propose to him, get turned down, announce that he knew Sam had been lying to him for the past two months, and then stay to eat his macaroni and cheese, either. It was a weird day. 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“They’re gonna be fine,” Clint said on their last day as the caretakers of ten birds. He had the chickens in a dog crate, three more dog crates for the swans, and Lecter tucked under his arm. Any second now Sam was not going to be responsible for them. In theory. Definitely he was going to be farther away from them. 

“Let me take her,” Natasha said, shoulders tight. She held her hands out for Lecter with her elbows locked. 

“You don’t have to,” Clint said. 

“Give her to me.” She pulled Lecter against her stomach, both hands gentle on the bird, but kept her chin up and her eyes straight ahead. 

“If she hates it we can take her back, right?” Bucky wiggled a finger at Lecter. She pushed her neck up against his hand for scratches. 

Sam shared a look with Clint, who understood how likely that was. “Yeah,” Sam said. “If it’s too late, if she’s just not happy outside with other birds, yeah, we can take her back. But Bucky, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. She likes her chickens.” 

“She does now. She still might kill one of them.” He looked at Clint narrowly. “If she does we want her back.” 

“Barnes, it’s a farm. I’ve had animals die on me. I’m not gonna fly into a murderous rage on a partridge for killing a chicken.” He reached over to punch Bucky’s arm. Bucky raised his eyebrows. Clint thought better of it. “Look, the kids’ll love her, she’s got her new pals. She’s got her swan dad. I’ll Skype you. Or video call you over a very secure Stark Industries line, I guess. You’ll see. She’ll love it.” 

“She can’t be alone with Meaner. He might drown her by accident.” 

“Got it. Supervised visits with swan dad.” He gestured out the open front door to the van parked at the curb. “Speaking of swan dad….” 

“Here we are,” said Steve. He bent to help Meanest up the last step from the basement and got whacked on the shoulder for his trouble. “Christ, Meanest.” 

“They can do stairs?” Clint said. Natasha backed up and put Sam between her and the swans. “Is that normal for swans? Great, I’m gonna have nightmares about them looming over our bed in the middle of the night. Like that scene in _Planet of the Apes_ , but with swans. I hope Laura knows what she’s getting us into.” 

Bucky grinned. “The remakes are fucking trash.” 

“Don’t you start with me. They don’t have an action hero holding his nose to jump in the water like a grade-schooler, do they?” 

Steve flapped his arms at the swans, urging them forward. “Don’t either of you start, and no, we’re not getting a chimpanzee, Buck.” Mean snaked back and bit one of Steve’s fingers. 

Natasha jumped a little, bumping into Sam’s back. “Are you sure you wanna hold Lecter?” he asked. 

She stepped forward until she could rest her chin on Sam’s shoulder. Lecter peeped and snuggled down between them, whacking with his feet at Sam’s back and Natasha’s front alternately. She flinched every time. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s sort of nice. We weren’t allowed to be afraid of things. I only got away with the bird phobia because it never came up. It’s… interesting… to work through it on my own.” 

“If you’re sure.”

“We’re getting along okay.” She sighed into his neck. “No cockatiels yet. When I come over I want those things locked up.” 

“You got it.” 

“Come on, guys. Just like we practiced.” Bucky threw a clump of duckweed in each dog crate. Mean and Meanest shuffled in after their treats and Bucky latched the doors. Meaner ducked his head briefly into his crate, then backed up and waddled over to Sam. 

“You be honest with me,” said Clint. “Have they nailed any of you in the junk yet?” 

“Not _yet_.” Bucky reached over and poked Sam’s shoulder. “Tell him to go in the crate.” 

“You tell him,” Sam said. 

“You can’t make demands of Sam, Bucky,” Steve said. “He’ll leave us for Odin.” 

“Shut your mouth, Steven Grant. You’re jealous you don’t get proposed to by space kings. I could be wearing a crown right now. Have somebody hand-feeding me grapes.” 

“I just want Sam to accept his destiny. Look. Meaner, get in your crate.” Meaner attempted to stick his beak into the ankle of Sam’s shoe. “Now you try.” 

“That was some cheating. That wasn’t even as demanding a tone as your regular speaking voice. He doesn’t know what the hell you just said, he doesn’t speak English.” 

“Meaner,” Bucky snapped, so suddenly in full Winter Soldier mode that Sam flinched. “Get in.” 

Meaner whipped around and stretched out low to the ground. He hissed, half-wings flapping. 

Bucky, cheerful again, shrugged. “Nothing. Now you.”

“The other two did it fine for you,” Sam said. “This doesn’t mean anything. Go on, Meaner. Get in there.” 

Meaner got in there. He sauntered, and paused a few times, but he did get in there. 

“Wow,” said Clint. “That was weird. I’ve seen an alien bug the size of a skyscraper, and that was weird. Bye.” He grabbed the chicken’s crate in his free hand and walked out the door, followed—hastily—by Natasha. “ _I’m_ not carrying the swans, obviously. I’ve got two super soldiers and a Falcon, you guys carry them.” 

“Maybe we should bring Lecter out tomorrow,” Bucky said. 

“We’d just upset him,” Steve said, and grabbed the handle to a crate in each hand. “He won’t think this is bad unless we act like it is.” He was looking at Sam. “Clint’s right, he’s going to love it there.” 

Sam nodded. Lecter bobbed off under Natasha’s arm, clucking down at the chickens in the crate. 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Sam lay down on the floor of the cockatiels’ room and threw his arms over his eyes, leaving Bucky to let the birds out. “We have so much work to do,” he said. “We’ve gotta… Jesus. The entire basement. The carpet in the guest room needs to come out. The living room, I don’t know.” 

“I’ll replace the carpets,” Steve said. The door closed behind him. “All of them. My plan didn’t work out so well.” 

“No, it didn’t. We had fun, though. Did you let the ravens inside?”

“It’s Christmas,” Steve said sheepishly. 

“Not for three damn days it isn’t. What are they doing?” 

“Just inspecting the basement. You like them, come on. They got you an intergalactic marriage proposal.” He made a soft sound and Sam uncovered his face to see why. Russ had landed on the side of Steve’s outstretched hand and touched her beak to his nose. She made a puttering noise. 

“Wrong sound effect,” Bucky told her. Lill was on his left shoulder, shifting closer to his neck. “Well, we’ll be able to afford all the new carpets we want. These guys have got each other, we’ve got Mrs. Perle for backup, so I’m going back to work.” 

“That’s the deal,” Sam agreed, retreating beneath his arm again. Something poked his stomach and prickled its way up to his chest. “Which one’s on me?”

“Lill,” Bucky said. “Is the one that’s on you.” Which was a weird way to phrase it, so Sam peeked out again. Lill was sitting on his chest. Russ and Daze were toddling along the floor up to him on either side. 

“I’ve got seeds in my pockets still,” Sam remembered, dropping his arm back over his eyes. “Someone else fish them out, I’m going to sleep.” 

Lill shoved her head into the crook of his elbow and kept burrowing until she was wedged between his arm and his face. “These ones I’m teaching to bow,” Bucky said. Someone fished the seeds out of his pocket and started distributing them. Lill didn’t move. Sam pursed his lips and blew at her. She started making her telephone sound. 

“Ah, shit,” said Steve. His knee bumped Sam’s hip. 

“God fucking damn it,” said Bucky from Sam’s other side. “You _knew_? We had a partridge and swans and French hens and calling goddamn birds and you didn’t tell me?” 

“I was afraid of this.” 

“Sam.” Bucky poked his side. “Sam, how long does it take to teach a cockatiel to whistle a song? Never mind, we can do it. Daze, repeat after me, because this is how we’re waking Steve up on Christmas morning.”


End file.
